Broadway’s ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’: How Far We’ve Come

By

Eric Sasson

Apr 22, 2014 10:00 am ET

I don’t remember the last time I heard a Broadway audience scream so loud. From the first moment Neil Patrick Harris lowers onto the stage of the Belasco theater as Hedwig in a jumpsuit with exaggerated and curved legs cobbled together from vintage German and American camouflage fabrics, I knew this wasn’t going to be your typical night at the theater.

Perhaps it was the sight of a major Hollywood player taking on a risky, if beloved iconic role. Perhaps because it’s been a long time since the original 1998 off-Broadway production, which then led to the 2001 feature film, now a cult classic which has inspired thousands of rabid fans called “Hedheads”: “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” has been long overdue for its turn on Broadway.

But maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was a way for us to celebrate the transformation of our culture, to acknowledge just how far LGBT rights have come since John Cameron Mitchell first started performing the characters of Hedwig and Tommy back at edgy dives like the punk-drag club Squeezebox in the early 90’s. Back then, Hedwig was considered fringe, the kind of character you’d see only in certain “downtown” clubs: too gay for the straight venues, too rock and roll for the more mainstream gay bars (and interestingly enough, often “too Broadway” for the rock-and-roll bars).